Search This Blog

Department of Justice and Microsoft Battle in Court Over User Privacy

Arguments in
a Seattle federal court began on Monday, on whether the government should stop
Microsoft from alerting their users when a government agency requests their
personal information.

In the case
of Microsoft v. Department of Justice, the tech giant will continue their
effort to fight against “overly broad” government surveillance.

“Microsoft
has said that it received more than 5,000 federal demands for customer
information or data between September 2014 and March 2016.

Nearly half of those
demands were accompanied by gag orders preventing Microsoft from notifying the
affected customers that the government had requested their information.

The
majority of those gag orders contained no time limit,” the ACLU said in a
statement.

Microsoft
claims that when they are served demands for user data, the demands are often
accompanied by gag-orders with no expiration date.

The company believes that
the gag-orders violate the First and Fourth Amendments.

“Before the
digital age, individuals and businesses stored their most sensitive
correspondence and other documents in file cabinets and desk drawers.

As
computers became prevalent, users moved their materials to local computers and
on-premises servers, which continued to remain within the user’s physical
possession and control.

In both eras, the government had to give notice when it
sought private information and communications, except in the rarest of
circumstances,” Microsoft pointed out in court documents.

The company
argued that individuals and businesses keep documents on remote servers owned
by third parties, such as in the cloud, so that they can access correspondence
and documents from any device.

“The
transition to the cloud does not alter the fundamental constitutional
requirement that the government must—with few exceptions—give notice when it
searches and seizes the private information or communications of individuals or
businesses,” the company stated.

The DOJ
argued that Microsoft is not suffering any “concrete injury” by not being able
to disclose to their users when the government has requested their personal
data, Ars Technica reported.

The DoJ also argues that, under current law, the
company cannot file a Fourth Amendment claim on behalf of others.

A big aspect
of this case will depend on whether Microsoft will be allowed to argue for the
constitutional rights of their customers.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The document
you see on the image is the order of the commander of the Tehran repressive
force to all the units based in the city.

Based on
this agenda, the mercenaries of the corrupt government Islamic Republic of Iran
have been allowed to use firearms in the event of any protest movement against
people by the regime. This is a
murder command. The
repressive force of the law, known to the world's famous police and guardians,
should protect the lives of its citizens, by freeing their mercenaries, they
allow them to murder Iranians who are protesting the corruption in the
government and you have the important message that if you come to the streets
in protest of corruption and torture and massacre, we will kill you. Because, according to criminal Khomeini, maintenance of the system is
obligatory. A corrupt government that is so hideous that spend billions of dollars from
the national treasury and popular capitalto the suppression of its people
and the countries of the region, must be ov…